Daughter of Princess Leia strikes back in family row

Carrie Fisher’s daughter has accused her aunts and uncle of trying to cash in on the legacy of the Star Wars actress.

Actresses Carrie Fisher and daughter Billie Lourd at the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Los Angeles in 2015. Picture: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Carrie Fisher’s daughter has accused her aunts and uncle of trying to cash in on the legacy of the Star Wars actress.

Billie Lourd, 30, also an actress, said that her relatives were not welcome at her mother’s Walk of Fame ceremony.

Fisher, who was loved by millions for her portrayal of Princess Leia, died in 2016, at the age of 60. Debbie Reynolds, her mother and also a Hollywood actress, died a day later, aged 84.

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies. Picture: Supplied

Fisher’s legacy was celebrated on Thursday US time with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Star Wars Day, May the fourth.

But her siblings, Todd and Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh, complained that they were not invited.

Todd Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, her daughter Carrie Fisher, and Joely Fisher at a premiere in Los Angeles in 2010. Picture: AFP

Lourd let the bad blood spill when she accused her aunts and uncle of trying to “capitalise” on her mother’s death.

“Days after my mom died, her brother and her sister chose to process their grief publicly and capitalise on my mother’s death by doing multiple interviews and selling individual books for a lot of money, with my mom and my grandmother’s deaths as the subject,” she said.

“I found out they had done this through the press. They never consulted me or considered how this would affect our relationship.”

Billie Lourd and her mother’s Star Wars co-star Mark Hamill at the star ceremony for Carrie Fisher on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 4. Picture: Valerie Macon/AFP

Lourd, who starred in the television series Scream Queens and played Lieutenant Connix in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, said her mother had had a “very complicated relationship with her family”.

This was known only “by me and those who were actually close to her”. She added: “Though I recognise they have every right to do whatever they choose, their actions were hurtful to me at the most difficult time in my life.”

Billie Lourd speaks onstage during the ceremony for Carrie Fisher. Picture: Getty Images

Lourd, a mother of two, said there was “no feud” with her relatives. “We have no relationship,” she added. “This was a conscious decision on my part to break a cycle with a way of life I want no part of for myself or my children.”

After Fisher died, Joely Fisher released Growing Up Fisher: Musings, Memories and Misadventures, followed by her brother’s My Girls: A Lifetime with Carrie and Debbie.

The Times